3 CHILDREN KILLED IN BLAZE BLAMED ON CARELESS USE OF MATCHES

Jack Houston and Philip WattleyCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Fire officials blamed careless use of matches for the deaths of three children Thursday when fire swept the family`s West Side frame bungalow.

The children`s burned bodies, including that of a 4-month-old girl, were recovered from the basement by firefighters after the blaze was extinguished. An uncle of the children cut his hands trying to rescue them, and four police officers suffered minor smoke inhalation.

The children were in a basement bedroom of the 1 1/2-story house, at 4522 W. Congress Pkwy., in which four generations of the family lived, neighbors said.

The dead were identified as Tinisha McKay, 4 months old; her brother, Kalvin, 6; and their sister, Monica, 7.

The children`s grandmother, Glennie McKay; their great-grandmother, Eva Brown; and their uncles, Al and Jose McKay, were upstairs in the house when the fire broke out shortly before 11 a.m., police said.

Their mother, Theresa Burns, who also lived in the basement apartment, had left for work.

Brown, 88, was carried from the burning building by a neighbor.

Firefighters, who extinguished the blaze in 17 minutes, found the bodies near a space heater, and investigators found matches in the area. The older children were pronounced dead at Loretto Hospital and the infant at St. Anne`s Hospital.

Jose McKay, 22, was treated at Loretto for cuts suffered when he smashed a basement window in an effort to reach the children. He was driven back by the heat.

Al McKay, who had been asleep in the attic, said, ''I woke up and the house was on fire. If I hadn`t woke up, I would have been burned.''

He said he ran downstairs and encountered the grandmother, who said the children were still in the basement and told him to call the fire department. Finding a telephone in the home inoperative, he ran to a neighbor`s home to make the call, he said.